––––––––
This evening, there were eight girls. Three Thai, a Slovak, a Ukrainian, a Russian, a Nigerian and Ju. She recognised a couple of the Eastern Europeans, but not the others. They exchanged glances, but they were largely united in their shame and so no words were ever spoken, no common bond acknowledged.
They sat on the beds and waited for the men to arrive. A brutish woman in her forties, white, with a strong Bristol accent, walked amongst them making sure they were clean, sending them to have a shower if she thought they were not prepared. The way she checked them was rough and indecent and degrading. The women would be charged for using the shower facilities. The Russian and one of the Thais were judged humiliatingly to have not been clean enough. They went off to wash.
While they were out the room, the first client arrived. The initial customers were always greedy, always wanting to make the most of having the women to themselves. He was forty-five and spoke softly. Ju recognised him as one of the most treacherous. Softly spoken was a trait she had linked with danger since she was a young girl. These people seemed to meet perfectly every preconception she had of men and their perversions and outrageous desires.
He said that he only wanted the Asian women. Ju and the two Thais undressed. They were all slim, small breasted. He licked his lips, a literal, vile movement of his tongue.
The other Thai returned and he smiled horribly, gesturing for her to undress and join the others.
*
At last, Pitt knew what it was that saddened Yuan Ju.
He had followed the bus to Bristol. The driver had spotted him, had watched how he slowed and pulled in to the side of the road every time the bus did the same, but the driver was unconcerned with the lives of others. He was only doing his job.
Pitt had then followed the black car with the dark windows on its way through Bristol. He had been a little more circumspect with the car, and had been more prepared to take the chance of losing it along the way.
He’d had a few ideas on what it might be that Ju did with herself on a Saturday night. The people who had met her and the car into which she had been placed confirmed one of Pitt’s suspicions. She was not meeting friends; she was not innocently spending time with the Chinese community. He did not want to lose her, as he needed to find out where she was going, but at least he had a firm idea of what she was doing.
As it was, he had followed the car all the way without too much trouble, and now he sat in a small café a little way down the road, drinking endless cups of coffee, and he knew what was being done to Ju at that moment. He also knew there was nothing he could do about it.
He could not go in there himself; protestations on her behalf would not release her from her bond, and these were never going to be the kind of people with whom one could deal or negotiate. He could not call the police, as she would be arrested too and likely deported.
He sat and drank coffee, turning off his mobile phone so that he did not have to listen to Daisy calling him every half hour, and waited.
*
The low point of Ju’s evening came just before eleven, when the men finally seemed to be exhausted. She was generally surprised at how many women these men could take, but that was because she did not know about the nature of some of the drugs they took. However, at last, as with every other evening, they finally seemed to be fatigued, and were mostly rounding their evening out with alcohol. Ju, still numb, had not started hurting yet, but she had been degraded beyond the point of return. She had begun to wonder if she would ever be back.
What could they do to her, if she walked away from this life? Would they kill her? Would she care if they did? Would not death be preferable to this awful humiliation that was heaped upon her once a week?
She lay exhausted on a stained bed, her naked body covered up. The other women sat or lay around her, except the Russian girl who was still servicing a client. She was one who did not seem to mind, who seemed to have an insatiable appetite for her work. Ju did not understand.
Two late clients arrived just as Ju had begun to feel the pain of the evening. They were gratefully received by Chen Yun. They were young and brash and wanted all the women. The sated, crapulent oafs around the room looked on with disinterest. Their sex was over for the night, the remainder of their pleasure to be had from drugs and alcohol. Perhaps one or two of them didn’t mind having something to watch.
A sharp double clap.
‘You must clean yourselves up,’ said Chen Yun abruptly. ‘You have more guests.’
None of the women spoke. With the exception of Ju and the Russian, they got up off the bed and walked slowly out of the room. Sometimes work lasted until midnight. Sometimes until four or five in the morning; yet, it had not been too much to hope that it would be finished by not long after eleven.
Ju stayed on the bed, although she sat up, drawing the sheets around her. Chen Yun did not like to verbally abuse his women when there were clients in the room. However, with Ju, he did not have to spare anyone else’s embarrassment.
‘Clean yourself up,’ he snapped in Mandarin.
‘I cannot,’ she responded, although she deferred to Chen by not speaking English. She did not look at him. ‘I am in pain.’
Chen Yun took a moment and then walked closer to the bed. He lowered his voice, and while he continued to talk in Mandarin, his tone was friendly and completely at odds with his words.
‘If you do not do as you are told, you will suffer. You are here to work, Yuan Ju.’
‘I cannot suffer anymore,’ she said. In the dim light of the room with no windows, the others could not see the true rage of Chen Yun’s face. Given the horror that had been visited upon Ju by these men in the preceding few hours, it was unlikely that any of them would be uncomfortable with Chen Yun’s anger at Ju, yet he wanted to conceal it.
‘You may not mind if you suffer, Ju,’ said Chen Yun, ‘for you suffer already. But you have a job to do, and if you do not do it, you must remember that we know where your people live. We know your mother and father. We know your grandmother. If you do not do as you are requested, then they too will suffer.’
Ju did not look him in the eye. It was all she needed to hear, for she did not doubt Chen’s threat and the range of Chen’s influence. Neither raising her eyes, nor bowing her head lower, Ju let the sheet fall around her and eased herself off the bed. She caught the eye of one of the two new arrivals as she walked past him. He leered at her, over a long glass of vodka, his eyes running over her body. In the dim light, he could not see the bruises.